Iquitos: A Frenchman meets an Indian boy playing with a rubber ball (and guess happens)

Hotel Casa Morey

Hotel Epoca

These are pictures of the hotels we stayed in during our visit to Iquitos in the Amazon and this post is really a just an explanation of the reason for their architecture. That is why they look like turn of the century French European style homes and not like the traditional Spanish colonial architecture normally seen in Peru or the wood homes used by natives. The history of places is often as interesting as the pictures. We have some great pictures of Iquitos and the Amazon too, but those are for the next post. First some history.

Remember Charles-Marie de La Condamine of the team of French explorers who went to South America in 1735 to locate the equator? see La Mitad del Mundo.

Lacking money to return to France any other way, Condamine decided to try his luck floating down the Amazon and was among the first scientists to actually do so. On the trip down the Amazon he saw some Indian children (more correctly indigenous people) playing with a rubber ball -- something he had never seen before.

Investigating further, he determined that the rubber came from the sap of the Para tree and, intrigued by its properties, he took some back to France. Condamine was not the first European to discover this substance and its properties, but was one of the first to try to figure out something useful to do with it. While the rubber from latex from the tree proved useful for flexible tubing, erasers, clothing accessories (garters) and other uses, the rubber had problem. When cold it became hard and brittle, but when warm it became stretchy and sticky, a particular problem for the “clothing accessories.” Fortunately, in 1939, an American, Charles Goodyear, perfected the process of “vulcanization” (treating rubber with sulfur), which solved this problem. 

Meanwhile, with the invention and growing popularity of bicycles and the automobile there was a growing demand for rubber tires.  Despite a wide variety of rubber trees, the highest quality rubber came from the Para tree that grew only in the Amazon.

However, the exploitation of any resources of the Amazon area, including rubber, had been impossible. The area was impassible by land and, while numerous groups had descended the Amazon River, there was no way for commercial size vessels to travel up the Amazon; that is until the steamboat, which began navigating the Amazon in the 1850's. 

Lastly, having finally settled a border dispute with Brazil, Peru decided to build a port on the Amazon to secure its claim over the territory. After a review of potential sites, they decided on the Village of Iquitos, a small Indian fishing village with a population of less than 200. On January 5, 1864, three steamships of the Peruvian Navy:  the Pastaza, the Próspero and the Morona, arrived in the Village of Iquitos, and a modern port was soon constructed in the heart of the Amazon.

 The Boom

The inevitable result of these contemporaneous events was a “rubber boom” with Iquitos at the commercial epicenter. Beginning in the late 1870's Iquitos became a boom town drawing Europeans speculators and merchants to a city where fortunes were made in days.

For the next 30 years or so the Amazon Basin controlled the rubber trade. Although isolated and only accessible by steamboat, Iquitos became a prosperous, dynamic city of ostentatious "nouveau riche" rubber barons, who built beautiful European style homes and buildings in a city in the middle of the jungle.

Dastardly British Colonial Biopiracy – the Bust

A “bust” is the inevitable result of boom, and the bust of the rubber boom has an especially nefarious cause. That all this rubber wealth was outside the economically powerful British empire was, shall we say, something of a disappointment to the British. In what was the world´s greatest act of biopiracy, the British sent a botanist named Henry Wickman on a secret mission to the Amazon to find and steal seeds of the Para tree.

Hacking his way into the heart of the Amazon, Wickham found the Para trees and collected some 70,000 seeds. Listing them as scientific field specimens, he managed to secretly ship them down the Amazon and across the ocean. The future of the Amazonian rubber industry and all these fortunes were then doomed, although they would not know that until years later.

The seeds of the Para tree are large and quite pretty

England planted Wickham’s seeds in Sri Lanka and Malaysia. It would take 35 years of trial-and-error planting, but by 1913, the rubber trade belonged to the British. In 1913, the rubber from the seeds smuggled from the Amazon and planted in Britain’s Asian plantations flooded the market, ruining the trade in the more expensive “wild” rubber from the Amazon. The Amazon rubber industry never recovered. In 1900, the Amazon region produced 95 percent of the world’s rubber. By 1928, the Amazon produced barely 2.3 percent of it. Fortunes were lost, lives ruined, beautiful homes deserted and steamboats left abandoned in the river. A sad time.

Another Part of the Story

When tapped, rubber trees weep a milky latex that is the base form of natural rubber. The Para tree in the Amazon produced “hevea,” the most sought-after raw material for rubber. The Para trees, however, grew in relative isolation, spread across millions of acres, and are not easy to find. For that reason, “tappers,” the men contracted by merchants to collect the sap, used the local indigenous tribes to actually find the trees and tap the sap. 

The latex sap was "cooked" to create large cylindrical balls of rubber balls for ease of handling and transportation 

While many rubber merchants and tappers treated the indigenous people fairly and the tapping provided important economic benefits for these people, this was not always the case. 

Slavery and systematic brutality were also widespread with severe punishment meted out to indigenous communities and people who failed to bring in the requisite amount of latex. In some areas, 90% of the Indian population was wiped out by disease and the brutality. One of the most notorious operations was the Peruvian Amazon Company run by Julio Cesar Arana. He even recruited large, machete wielding African Americans from Barbados, known as the “muchachos.” Using the most brutal means imaginable, they were responsible for assuring that the natives collected the required latex.  Arana and the PAC were eventually investigated by the British Parliament and condemned for its practices. PAC was dissolved and, although never criminally prosecuted, the once all-powerful rubber baron Arana died penniless in Lima. It is recognized in Peruvian history books as one of the saddest parts of Peruvian history (including the atrocities of the Spanish conquistadors).

Uncontacted Tribes (Voluntarily isolated communities)

From time to time we read accounts of primitive indigenous tribes in the Amazon who live without any contact with the outside world. When I was younger I naively thought that this was because the Amazon was so large and the jungle so dense that these people had never been found by outsiders. Actually, that is not quite true. Many of these groups are descendants of the natives who had decided that the only way to survive the brutality of the rubber barons was to flee deeper into the Amazon jungle, forming "voluntary isolated communities." Their experience remains seared in the collective memories and traditions of their descendants. In their view of the world, any contact with the outside will only lead to slavery, brutality, disease and death. 

Fortunes are usually accompanied by ostentatious displays ofwealth and so it was in Iquitos. The wealthiest Europeans built great mansions made with expensive imported Italian and Portuguese tiles, some of which still survive, including the Casa Morey, built by a wealthy rubber baron, Luis Morey in 1913.  The Casa Morey has been restored as a hotel with its original Victorian and Amazonian motifs, and is the reason our hotel looked like this:

All of this, including Peru's decision to locate its Amazon outpost in Iquitos, the Para tree, the rubber boom,  the beautiful old homes and the voluntarily isolated indigenous communities, set the historical backdrop for our visit to Iquitos and the Peruvian Amazon.

Dogs of La Molina

La Molina prides itself on being a pet friendly city with all kinds of dogs and conscientious owners (however, we have also learned to look carefully where we step when walking on the sidewalks).

Although over thousands of years dogs have developed extraordinarily effective fur coats that will protect them in the coldest weather, no dog owner in La Molina would even consider taking their dog out for its daily "paseo" in 50-plus degree weather without a stylish coat. So when winter comes, the streets of La Molina become something of a fashion show for dogs (or their owners).

Always pretty in pink!  Even with a thick Husky-like coat, a dog needs to take the Lima winter seriously.  And what better way than in this pink coat with black dots.

This poor guy is all dressed up properly for his walk in a neat blue coat embellished with colorful canine-themed accents. Why would anyone want to leave without him? So sad!

This was the year, the first in 30-something years, that Peru went to the World Cup!  Here's one of the fans in the traditional "blanquiroja" stripped Jersey. From the expression, he must have been watching one of Peru's World Cup games, none of which ended well.

A  happy spaniel looking sharp in his comfy plaid jumper.

A patriotic look for this Great Dane on Peru's Independence Day.

Orange may be the hot new look -- the new black -- haven't you heard?

Blue on black looks good on this Lab.

 

Sporting a Southwestern Navajo rug theme this year.

These guys are going for a different look, and it doesn't involve pretty pink coats.

Sky-blue is always a favorite, but, seriously ladies, it is really all about the shoes.

A brief commentary on dogs in La Molina:  There are all kinds of dogs here!  The pictures above do not accurately represent all of the various breeds that we see as we walk the sidewalks.  There are  many small dogs -- probably even more than the larger breeds. Especially common are chihuahuas.  One sees Yorkshire terriers. Poodles and poodle-mixes are everywhere.  There are all kinds of terriers, shar peis, bulldogs (including the French sort), beagles, dobermann pinschers and miniature pinschers.  I even saw and petted a St. Bernard puppy (about 6 months old at the time) running away from her owner!  However, we have never seen a Welsh corgi -- pembroke or cardigan -- here, and none of the locals we've talked to about corgis have ever heard of the breed. (What would the Queen think?) Jewels would find many friends here, but none quite like her. 

Brasilia 350, etc.

We're in a new place, apartment 201 on Brasilia 350 in La Molina (for those who want to check it out on google maps). It is a long, complicated story why we're here and not in the apartment on Melgarejo and Bogota or in the Temple apartments, but in short it is nice to be back in a neighborhood.

In terms of interior design and layout, consider an apartment organized around a single long hallway resembling a bowling lane. All things considered, however, it is a step up from the noisy place at Melgarejo and Bogota with its small kitchen, although I liked the Spanish colonial look of the other apartment better than this modern box style.

One of the reasons we moved was that, with Evie recovering from sinus infections, the apartment on Melgarejo wasn't ideal, especially when another (this one) on a quiet street with less traffic fumes was available. So, promptly after we moved in, they decided to demolish the building across street.

A nice thing about being missionaries is that members are really nice to you, because you are missionaries (they have great regard for the calling here in Peru). These nice people, as part of an YM/YW service project, came by one Saturday morning to help clean our apartment. The sister at the far left is one of the YW leaders.

Another senior missionary couple, serving in the temple, left for home, which required a party and entertainment for those on the Friday evening temple shift.

This is the primary practicing a Father´s Day song. The twins in the front row (boy with dark sweater and girl in pick dress) are in our class.  (We teach a class for the English speaking kids). They are really cute.

The boy with blond hair in the middle row is also in the class. The tall girl right behind him is his big sister. She is not in our class. The blonde boy is looking at and getting ready to bother another boy in a white shirt who is already bothering a girl with dark brown hair. 

The boy in the white shirt is from an Argentine family, who speak English (lived in Plano, TX for awhile) and are moving to India. That boy and his older brother, who is also wearing a white shirt and standing behind him and next to the blonde kid´s older sister, have been coming to our class to practice their English. The brown haired girl who is being bothered by the boy in the white shirt also comes to our class. Her father is a mission president and the family is from Brazil, but lived for several years in Florida. She speaks Portuguese and English, but not much Spanish yet.

 Our lessons are the same as any other primay class. The class members, however, can be quite interesting.

 

We stopped by our legal coordinator's house to pick up some chicken from a "pollada" (another story) and, since we speak English, their son David wanted to show us that he could recite in English the names of animals from A to Z.  This is David announcing the animal for "W." Courtesy of some earlier comments by Grandma Evie, the animal chosen was not "wolf" but "werewolf." (Note: "blanquirroja" jersey)

Dancing grand kids, check this out. This is Andrea (AKA Andreita), who had taken some ballet lessons, but is now taking "marinera" lessons. The marinera is Peru's national dance and there are marinera dance academies all over and a big national contest each year in Trujillo. This is a link to an earlier post with a clip of the dance towards the end of the post marinera dance clip . It is not a "free form" dance, but one with lots of specific moves that have to be learned and performed precisely by both dancers.

Andreita was just wearing her PJs, but put on her skirt to show us the dance. The skirt is actually really heavy, I guess because it gives the dancer better control. It is a courtship dance, but interestingly the two dancers never actually touch.

 Evie (along with a few hundred other missionaries) welcoming Elder Stevenson to Perú. 

Ecuador

I like this picture. The snow capped mountain in the background is Cotopaxi, the second highest summit in Ecuador (5,897 m /19,347 ft) and an active volcano, last erupted in 2016.

I took the photo from the window of this place, the Hacienda los Mortinos, an "idyllic destination getaway" about two hours south of Quito in a plain or valley known as Predregal. I had to go to some meetings in Quito, and we decided to go a few days early to some place that was not like Lima, and we ended up here. It was fun and we even had our own llama herd that wandered in from time to time.

Another picture of Cotopaxi from the hacienda.

The area around is largely pasture land for horses and cattle, mostly dairy cattle. Not far and a little lower, the land is planted with potatoes. I suppose the volcanic origin of the soil in southern Idaho, as well has here, makes for good potatoes. The man in the photo is a "Chagra," the term here in Ecuador for a cowboy. If you look closely at how he is dressed you may see some clues about this place that are not evident from photos - it is cold and windy, as well as spectacular. 

The area is surrounded by horse pastures and one night some of those horses managed to escape and spent the night wondering around the hacienda. Check out the video clip. It's what horses do when free to wander where they're not supposed to be.

With Cotopaxi spectacular, but cold and windy and feeling the effects of the altitude, we decided on an adventure hike at a lower altitude. About 30 minutes away from our hotel in a four wheel drive vehicle over very rough dirt roads is a trail up a little canyon along the Rio Pita to a waterfall known as the Cascada Cóndor Machay. The amazing thing is that it is a very jungle-like environment even though we were still at around 10,000 feet and not that far from the nearly 20,000 foot Cotopaxi. 

The trail crosses the river about six or seven times with bridges such as this. Although made of steel, they still sway. Kids, wanting to annoy their parents, can make them sway about a foot or so. With an adult being careful, such as Grandma Evie, it will still sway 3 or 4 inches, just enough to make you look down to the river far below.

Resting with our Spanish speaking guide and driver -- a nice young man, but crazy driver.

The Rio Pita begins in the glaciers of Cotopaxi, flows down the high plains until falling here into the canyon. It really is a cool place (and favorite for locals with their families).

Quito

While Grandpa Mike went to some legal meetings, Grandma Evie went shopping and explored interesting things of Quito, such as this piece of public art. Afterwards we did the essential tourist things we missed on our last trip, including:

The TelefériQo (the name derives from teleférico and Quito), a gondola lift running from the edge of the city center up the east side of Pichincha Volcano to lookout Cruz Loma. It is one of the highest aerial lifts in the world, rising from 3,117 m (10,226 ft) to 3,945 m (12,943 ft). 

The lift provides access to viewpoints with great views of the city and surrounding volcanoes. It also provides access to a network hiking and biking trails in the mountains above Quito (I think some of the trails down would be a lot of fun, but unfortunately no bike). We enjoyed the views and walked on some of the trails (until our bodies reminded us that we were at 13,000 feet and had been living a sea level for almost a year.)

That afternoon, it was on to....

Mitad del Mundo (see this post Mitad del Mundo).  Having lived in some of the "4-corners" states, and having taken our children to the actual 4-Corners monument years ago, we thought it would be fun to have pictures of two different hemispheres.

So close, yet really hemispheres apart.

The Mitad del Mundo monument was not as lame as I had expected and was well done. Grandma Evie enjoying some of the interesting public art.

When we were waiting to go through customs at the Lima international airport on our return from Quito, we met three sister missionaries returning from missions in Honduras. We then walked into the public arrival area to this huge, loud welcome, which of course was not for us but for the three missionaries standing behind us. I appreciate that SLC has a reputation for over the top welcomes for returning missionaries, but these Peruvians have taken it to another level. The photo doesn't come near to capturing the event (it wasn't really our party to take pictures of). There were three large groups of 20+ with matching t-shirts and various welcome home banners. One sister had to walk through a mock welcome home finish line tape to greet her awaiting family. Our ride from the airport was late so we were hanging around for the next 45 minutes or so during which the families all took photos for themselves welcoming home a missionary. This was actually one of may favorite moments of the trip. It was not tacky or feigned like so many things nowadays, but sincere (and very well executed, which is not always the case here).